78 : The Atlantic 



the rocks above the town of Hamamat, which is 420 miles up the 

 Nile above Cairo. From here he departed and here he returned. He 

 crossed the desert to the city of Coptos (Cosseir), a port on the 

 Red Sea. From here he sailed to the eastern end of that sea — a region 

 then known as the land of Punt. The port of this land was Seba or 

 Sheba. Here Hannu traded and also apparently collected booty for 

 the Pharaoh "out of fear and dread such as he inspired in all na- 

 tions." The total amount of goods was so great that he had to build 

 additional vessels in the port of Seba in order to take back to Egypt 

 the cargo which included spices and precious stones for the statues 

 of the temples, 80,000 measures of myrrh, 6,000 weight of gold-silver 

 alloy, 2,600 staves of precious wood, probably ebony. This was in 

 2700 B.C. 



Twelve hundred years later, that is in 1500 b.c. Queen Hatshepsut 

 sent out a similar expedition to Punt which likewise was recorded in 

 pictures and stories on the temple walls at Ded-el-bahari. These expe- 

 ditions to Punt were both ventures on a very great scale but we may 

 infer that lesser trade expeditions were probably quite common in the 

 intervening years. In any event, the building of sailing ships for voy- 

 ages running the length of the Red Sea and probably also for cover- 

 ing portions of the eastern Mediterranean was possible in the year 

 2750 B.C. The ships were large and could carry a large number of peo- 

 ple and a relatively large cargo as the records show. We must infer 

 therefore that the ships were of a recognized pattern and that back of 

 them rested a maritime history. 



We do not know what manner of vessels plied the Mediterranean 

 and the Red Sea before Hannu's expedition for there are no drawings 

 that we can definitely identify with earlier vessels plying the sea, but 

 from what we know about the character of the nations that occupied 

 Persia, Mesopotamia, the eastern end of the Red Sea and Egypt, we 

 can infer that they traded with each other both by land and by coast- 

 ing voyages for thousands of years before the date of Hannu's expedi- 

 tion. In Egypt we have drawings of relatively large ships that are at 

 least as old as 6000 b.c. We are certain that such ships were cruising 

 the Nile and it is probable that others like them were sailing the Med- 

 iterranean. 



This we know, that ships were operating in Egypt 8,000 years ago. 

 They already have lines that suggest the Egyptian ships of thousands 

 of years later — ships with raised bows and sterns. They require a 

 number of oarsmen and could apparently also provide space for pas- 



